The Eulogy

Mishka;
2013

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Music from this release

There are a few dozen spots on Cakes Da Killa's first full-length mixtape that are likely to crack you up, but the one that made me actually laugh out loud on a crowded subway platform is the breakdown in "Da Good Book" where he and a female accomplice sing the line "I've been thinking bout dick/ na na na na" in an off key approximation of the melody to Frank Ocean's "Thinkin Bout You". The blend of pottymouthed humor and a Biz Markie-an performance is by no means subtle, but it can easily catch you off guard and end up making a bunch of people waiting for the G train wonder what your deal is.

Cakes' less-than-faithful tribute to Ocean's breakthrough single might just be a raunchy joke, but it's also not hard to hear it as a gay rapper laughing at the Very Serious Discussion about gay rappers in media over the past year, which some no doubt very well-meaning cultural critics have included Frank Ocean in despite the fact that he's not actually a rapper. In this interpretation Cakes seems to be asking why it should be such a big deal that a male rapper is rapping about wanting to have sex with other men. Then, as if to prove the implied point, he goes on to rap about fucking men for another six songs.

Granted, he was already doing a lot of that up to that point. Cakes is maybe the closest thing hip-hop has right now to a Lil Kim figure, a raunchy-ass bitch who absolutely owns being a raunchy-ass bitch, and has enough on-mic charisma to convince us that this is an admirable personality type. (Azealia Banks's lack of off-mic charm disqualifies her, and Nicki Minaj is busy constructing a lane all her own.) The first time we hear Cakes on The Eulogy, after a chunk of Donna Summer's version of "MacArthur Park" pitched up to resemble vintage Kanye chipmunk soul, it's when he says "Pockets stay on swole, peep the motherfucking cash flow/ niggas pay my loans just to finger fuck my asshole." Things stay pretty much at that level from there on out.

In fact Cakes almost only breaks from describing sex scenes in comically graphic detail (one memorable one taking place in a Honda Civic) to throw a fantastic amount of shade on his haters. Like Dosha Devastation from House of Ladosha, he's proving that hip-hop can function extremely well as a conduit for the type of highly stylized bad attitude that's been refined into an art in the drag and ballroom scenes-- on "Break 'Em Off", he proudly declares himself "the most clinically insane cunt bitch up in the game."

According to a new interview in Paper, the mixtape's title originally referred to Cakes' plan to end his musical career after this release, but he's since changed his mind. Which is great news, because in the short time since his shaky, beat-jacking debut EP Easy Bake Oven in late 2011 and The Eulogy's recording, he developed into a seriously talented artist. His writing is so densely packed with jokes and references that it takes several listens just to get a start on catching them all, and he's become a remarkably confident rapper, cramming bars full of syllables like E-40 and making enough unpredictable lateral moves (and using enough pitch-shifted voices) to ease the pain of Missy Elliott's ongoing absence for a second or two.

Despite its bummer of a title, The Eulogy is actually a total blast. Cakes' taste in beats runs toward minimalist arrangements and maximum crunk, and the production (by a roster of talented but unknown producers) is a pleasurable blend Detroit techno, Miami bass, 90s club R&B, and the weirdest sounds that rap radio currently has to offer.

At one point Cakes brags that he can, "spit that shit that make a homophobe a hypocrite," and I don't doubt that he could. There's something very compelling not only about the way he raps, but also about aggressive strain of hedonism at The Eulogy's heart, this idea that simply making pleasure seeking the center of your existence can be a statement, even an art, and if anyone thinks differently then fuck 'em.